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‘Top Chef: New Orleans:’ Warancini

We begin the episode with a Quickfire Challenge. (Technically, we begin the episode with Sara boo-hooing about getting Janine eliminated by being terrible at Vietnamese food even though Sara cooks Asian noodles in an airport and Travis dates Asians; and with Travis revealing that his dad doesn’t know that he’s gay, which, uh, dude? I hope you had a little chat with him before this season began …) Padma and Gail welcome the cheftestants into a kitchen in which everything, everything — food, pots, blenders, spoons — has been wrapped in a popular brand of aluminum foil whose name I am not going to mention because unlike Bravo, I haven’t been paid money to do so. WHY? WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THIS? lament the cheftestants. Why? Because the Producers told the interns to, that’s why.

Padma and Gail introduce the cheftestants to their mothers, and explain that the cheftestants will be divided into two teams: Padma’s Mom and Gail’s Mom. Each team will have thirty minutes to make three dishes from befoiled items that Padma’s Mom and Gail’s Mom collect in five minutes and they must use every ingredient they are given.

And so, like an episode of Blind Supermarket Sweep, the mothers begin throwing anything and everything into their shopping carts.

In the end, Gail’s mom does a pretty solid job, but for a missing whisk that befuddles Insecure Carrie. Padma’s mom throws everything, including baking soda, into her cart. BAKING SODA? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH BAKING SODA? lament Padma’s Mom’s Team, before deciding to make a soup with cherries and beans because SIGH.

Cooking cooking cooking, and after a painfully short 30 minutes the two teams present their menus:

After praising Carrie’s whiskless sabayon, and noting that it was difficult to differentiate the ingredients in the soup with the beans and carrots and chiles and okra and a cherry/strawberry chutney (I SHOULD HOPE SO. Can you even imagine tasting those things together? Not being able to distinguish each of those things is the best possible outcome.), Gail announces that Team Lakshmi and their weird bean/cherry soup is the winner.

After shooing their mothers away, Padma and Gail then announce the Elimination Challenge and introduce this week’s celebrity judge: Lea Michele. AND THIS MIGHT BE OFFENSIVE, SO I AM GOING TO GO AHEAD AND APOLOGIZE: I AM SORRY, I AM A MONSTER. But was I the only person with the morbid curiosity to wonder when, exactly, this episode taped in relation to Cory Monteith’s death? I must not be, because the Bravo blog clarifies that the episode taped before he died. Glad I’m not a monster. Or if I am a monster, I’m not the only one.

Lea Michele is hosting a Halloween costume party in the middle of July (I do not judge, I have thrown my own Halloween parties in July for reasons that are too complicated to get into [actually, not that complicated: one of my kid’s birthday’s is in July and Halloween is his favorite holiday, so put on a polyester costume and melty face make-up, everyone, it’s almost August!]), and she wants the cheftestants to pair up and cater it with spoooooooky food. Here are her requests: She is a vegan except that cheese is her favorite food which makes her Not Vegan At All. Also, she loves cheese. And fried. And cheese. And fried cheese. And she does not like beets. But she does like spicy. And did she mention she loves cheese?

Shopping shopping shopping. PRO TIP: BUY ALL OF THE CHEESE.

When the cheftestants return to the Top Chef Kitchen, certain tensions become clear. Or, rather, one very strong tension becomes clear: Nina St. Lucia does not like her partner, Michael. She does not like him ONE. BIT. Furthermore, she thinks his idea to make arancini is stupid and weak and going to cost them this win.

Tom pays a visit to the kitchen to check on everyone’s progress/terrify the cheftestants, and it becomes obvious that Michael is not the only one who heard “vegetarian, fried and cheese” and thought: RISOTTO BALL! In fact, two other teams have the exact same idea. And listen, no one loves a good arancini as much as I do, but there is a limit to how much fried risotto one person can eat over the course of an evening. (LOLOLOL, JUST KIDDING, THERE IS NO LIMIT. ALL THE RISOTTO BALLS NOW, PLS.)

The day of the competition, the cheftestants are taken to Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World where the competition will take place. (Yay, Mardi Gras World! If you haven’t been, add it to your list the next time you go to New Orleans. It’s pretty great.) Cooking cooking cooking, and partners Shirley and Louis are getting along famously. In contrast, Michael is affectionately condescendingly calling his partner Nina, “Booboo,” and she is thisclose to stabbing him in the face. I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS BOOBOO NONSENSE, AND I AM GOING TO STAB YOU IN YOUR FACE, Nina glares.

Plating, plating, plating and the guests and judges arrive in their costumes, ready to eat alllllll of the arancini.

Tom and Lea Michele visit Carrie and Stephanie’s table first, and are served two dishes with a “black” theme: mushrooms with black garlic and radicchio, and an alarming ash-coated vegetables with fontina fonduta. While Stephanie and Carrie are both very competent-seeming chefs, and Tom and Lea both exclaim over the dishes, I’d rather not eat leek ash, thank you no thank you.

Nicholas and Patty do a “fall” theme, serving butternut squash cannoli with ricotta salata and the first arancini of the evening:a lemon arancini with smoked mozzarella. Padma and Hugh find the spooky quotient lacking, even after Patty explains that it’s Halloweenish because it’s orange? That’s a thing, right?

Brian and Bene heard “vegan but really vegetarian” and they thought: Salads! Spa foods that are salads! What’s scarier than spa salads! They offer the judges a crispy quinoa salad and mushroom espuma (which is just a silly word for “foam”) and an heirloom tomato salad with wilted kale. According to Tom and Lea, the salads are heavy and spoooooooookily underseasonsed.

Nina and Michael, Team I Hate You So Much Right Now, serve ricotta gnocchetti with kale pesto and Michael’s “bloody eye:” yellow arancini with saffron and tomato jam. Tom and Lea love the gnocchetti, they call it “perfect,” in fact, but haaaaaaaate Michael’s “tomato jam” which apparently tastes exactly like canned tomato sauce.

Carlos and Travis present a “Dia de los Muertos” theme, serving a raw vegetable ceviche with kale pineapple and peaches and a goat cheese fondue with fried zucchini, chipotle, shallots and white wine. Padma and Hugh plotz over the dishes, and when Lea sees Carlos’ fondue, she gasps, “Is that a whole bowl of cheese? I love you!”

Louis and Shirley offer a “worm salad” made of hand cut noodles and fresh daikon radish cucumbers and peanut oil (yes, please, yes) and a “severed thumb” made of braised quinoa and onions with potato puree. While Tom and Lea like the concepts, Lea finds the “thumb” too greasy.

Finally, Justin and Sarah present a “blood pasta” made from a beets and green tomatoes, EVEN THOUGH LEA MICHELE SAID SHE HATED BEETS — oh, God, is this going to be Kale Salad, Part 2: The Beetining? Sara offers the final arancini of the night: and “evil eye” arancini with a Moroccan tomato chutney. To Sara’s credit, her “evil eye” with the olive embedded into the risotto ball is much more eye-looking than Michael’s “bloody eye.” For what it’s worth. (Not much, as it turns out.)

Back at the Top Chef Kitchen, the judges first call back Nicholas, Patty, Carlos and Travis to choose a winner, and Patty is as shocked as anyone. The judges gush that they loved the spiciness of both Carlos and Travis’s dishes, and Travis begins to BLAH BLAH BLAH about how he works with a lot of Latinos in Colorado, so he knows all about Latin food. Which: enough, Travis. Stop trying to compensate for being an average white boy by trying to co-opt other cultures via acquaintances and friends. Stop it. You be you.

As for Patty and Nicholas, well, they don’t have much to say about Nicholas’ dish, but Patty’s arancini won the battle of the arancini. That said, Carlos and Travis are co-winners of this challenge, hooray for spicy cheese.

And then it’s time for the losers to be sent in to their doom. BRING TO TOM AND PADMA THE FOLLOWING SOULS: NINA, MICHAEL, BRIAN AND BENE. THEY SHALL FEAST ON THEIR SHAME.

Lea Michele shakes her head disappointedly at Brian and Bene for serving her two, TWO salads! Way to play on boring vegetarian stereotypes, guys. And! Also! Where was her CHEESE?

As for Michael and Nina, did Nina even try Michael’s sauce? WHY DIDN’T NINA TRY MICHAEL’S SAUCE? THEY WERE A TEAM! And never mind that Nina’s dish was perfection, she was responsible for Michael’s tomato sauce! Somehow!

And though the cheftestants worry that because two people were named winners, two people will be sent home, in fact only one person is eliminated: Michael, pack your demeaning nicknames and go.

Michael heads to Last Chance Kitchen which you can watch here. However, if you don’t have 10 minutes to spare, scroll over the next area to find out how he did:

Michael and Janine face off on, hilariously, a risotto challenge. Never mind that if this were supposed to be an opportunity for Michael to redeem himself it technically should have been a tomato sauce challenge. Michael spends a good third of his 30 minutes turning his condescending nicknames on Janine, dawdling in the pantry and looking for butter. Janine, in contrast, maximizes her cooking time and makes a gorgeous mushroom risotto that sends Michael back to Galatoire’s. BYE, BOOBOO!!

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.